DEAD BOYS • Live! At CBGB 1977 • (2004 MVD)
 Gery Vermin  rates it:

DEAD BOYS
Live! At CBGB 1977
(MVD)
Captured on celluloid by Rod Swenson (companion of the late Wendy O. Williams and assembler of the Plasmatics) in 1977, LIVE! is a recently exhumed and restored 3-camera immortalization of Cleveland's Dead Boys doing what they did best (see: trainwreck) before a chemically-altered CBGB congregation. For the simple fact that I play their YOUNG, LOUD AND SNOTTY opus on a near-weekly basis yet had never seen quality footage of them live, this one was already scoring high marks as my DVD player inhaled it and blinked on MVD's credentials. Two seconds and one howling buffoon-ed intro later and I was convulsing along with "vocalist" Stiv Bators and "Sonic Reducer" and having the time of my recent-video-watching life. From Cheetah Chrome's axe-wielding punk posturing (imagine Carrot Top tweaked to the nines and with a Rhode Island-sized chip on his shoulder), Jimmy Zero's pouty noodling, Johnny Blitz's fevered jackhamhorraging and the virtual non-existence of bassist Jeff Magnum in both sight and sound, all 42-minutes proved to be a true treat and left my quite surprised that "All This And More", "Ain't Nothin' To Do", "I Need Lunch" and "High Tension Wire" would actually get past the first chorus when performed live. Of course, the main focus here is the spasmodic sputtering of emaciated frontman Bators - part Iggy, part Rotten and all bedlamite - who would go on after the demise of the Dead Boys to form Lords Of The New Church with The Damned's Brian James before dying after being struck by a car while standing on a Paris sidewalk in 1990. Whether leaping headlong into nothing, gnawing on gum stuck to CBGB's Saltine of a stage or blowing his nose into a slice of bologna (one of three safety-pinned to his t-shirt) before cramming it into his piehole, there is no denying Bator's devotion and pioneering punk-itude to the sadly self-immolated genre.

Also included are some vintage pre/post-show interviews with each Dead Boy, a promo clip of the event from '77, fascinating interviews with CB's owner Hilly Kristal and some bald, goateed guy named Gene O'Connor (a.k.a. Cheetah Chrome), alternate camera angles view the dubious "Johnny Blitz-cam" and - I have no idea how they relate to the Dead Boys other than their debacle takes place on CBGB's stage as well - a bonus clip of the Steel Tips and their ever-dreadful (s)hit from 1978, "Krazy Baby".

Added:  Thursday, November 18, 2004

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Language: eng